Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys

CHAPTER XXXIII

In Which Billy Topsail, Besieged by Wreckers, Sleeps on Duty and Thereafter Finds Exercise For His Wits. In Which, also, a Lighted Candle is Suspended Over a Keg of Powder and Precipitates a Critical Moment While Billy Topsail Turns Pale With Anxiety

At Jolly Harbour, meantime, where Billy Topsail kept watch, except for the flutter of an apron or skirt when the women went to the well for water, there was no sign of life at the cottages the livelong day. No boats ran out to the fishing-grounds; no men were on the flakes; the salmon nets and lobster-traps were not hauled. Billy prepared a spirited defense with the guns, which he charged heavily with powder, omitting the bullets. This done, he awaited the attack, meaning to let his wits or his arms deal with the situation, according to developments.

The responsibility was heavy, the duty anxious; and Billy could not forget what Archie had said about the firm of Topsail, Armstrong, Grimm & Company.

“I ’low there was nothing for it but t’ leave me in charge,” he thought, as he paced the deck that night. “But ’twill be a job now to save her if they come.”

Billy fancied, from time to time, that he heard the splash of oars; but the night was dark, and although he peered long and listened intently, he could discover no boat in the shadows. And when the day came, with the comparative security of light, he was inclined to think that his fancy had been tricking him.

“But it might have been the punts slippin’ in from the harbours above and below,” he thought, suddenly. “I wonder if ’twas.”

He spent most of that day lying on a coil of rope on the deck of the cabin–dozing and delighting himself with long day-dreams. When the night fell, it fell dark and foggy. An easterly wind overcast the sky and blew a thick mist from the open sea. Lights twinkled in the cottages ashore, somewhat blurred by the mist; but elsewhere it was dark; the nearer rocks were outlined by their deeper black.

“’Twill be now,” Billy thought, “or ’twill be never. Skipper Bill will sure be back with the Grand Lake to-morrow.”

Some time after midnight, while Billy was pacing the deck to keep himself warm and awake, he was hailed from the shore.

“’Tis from the point at the narrows,” he thought. “Sure, ’tis Skipper Bill come back.”

Again he heard the hail–his own name, coming from that point at the narrows.

“Billy, b’y! Billy!”

“Aye, sir! Who are you?”

“Skipper Bill, b’y!” came the answer. “Fetch the quarter-boat. We’re aground and leakin’.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Quick, lad! I wants t’ get aboard.”

Billy leaped from the rail to the quarter-boat. He was ready to cast off when he heard a splash in the darkness behind him. That splash gave him pause. Were the wreckers trying to decoy him from the ship? They had a legal right to salve an abandoned vessel. He clambered aboard, determined, until he had better assurance of the safety of his charge, to let Skipper Bill and his crew, if it were indeed they, make a shift for comfort on the rocks until morning. “Skipper Bill, sir!” he called. “Can you swim?”

“Aye, b’y! But make haste.”

“I’ll show a light for you, sir, if you want t’ swim out, but I’ll not leave the schooner.”

At that there was a laugh–an unmistakable chuckle–sounding whence the boy had heard the splash of an oar. It was echoed to right and left. Then a splash or two, a creak or two and a whisper. After that all was still again.

“’Tis lucky, now, I didn’t go,” Billy thought. “’Twas a trick, for sure. But how did they know my name?”

That was simple enough, when he came to think about it. When the skipper had warned the first fisherman off, he had ordered Billy forward by name. Wreckers they were, then–simple, good-hearted folk, believing in their right to what the sea cast up–and now bent on “salving” what they could, but evidently seeking to avoid a violent seizure of the cargo.

Billy appreciated this feeling. He had himself no wish to meet an assault in force, whether in the persons of such good-natured fellows as the man who had grinned at him on the morning of the wreck, or in those of a more villainous cast. He hoped it was to be a game of wits; and now the lad smiled.

“’Tis likely,” he thought, “that I’ll keep it safe.”

For an hour or more there was no return of the alarm. The harbour water rippled under the winds; the rigging softly rattled and sang aloft; the swish of breakers drifted in from the narrows.

Billy sat full in the light of the deck lamps, with a gun in his hands, that all the eyes, which he felt sure were peering at him from the darkness roundabout, might see that he was alive to duty.

As his weariness increased, he began to think that the wreckers had drawn off, discouraged. Once he nodded; again he nodded, and awoke with a start; but he was all alone on the deck, as he had been.

Then, to occupy himself, he went below to light the cabin candle. For a moment, before making ready to go on deck again, he sat on the counter, lost in thought. He did not hear the prow of a punt strike the Spot Cash amidships, did not hear the whispers and soft laughter of men coming over the side by stealth, did not hear the tramp of feet coming aft. What startled him was a rough voice and a burst of laughter.

“Come aboard, skipper, sir!”

The companionway framed six weather-beaten, bearded faces. There was a grin on each, from the first, which was clear to its smallest wrinkle in the candle-light, to those which were vanishing and reappearing in the shadows behind. Billy seemed to be incapable of word or action.

“Come to report, sir,” said the nearest wrecker. “We seed you was aground, young skipper, and we thought we’d help you ashore with the cargo.”

Billy rested his left hand on the head of a powder keg, which stood on end on the counter beside him. His right stole towards the candlestick. There was a light in his blue eyes–a glitter or a twinkle–which might have warned the wreckers, had they known him better.

“I order you ashore!” he said, slowly. “I order you all ashore. You’ve no right aboard this ship. If I had my gun–”

“Sure, you left it on deck.”

“If I had my gun,” Billy pursued, “I’d have the right t’ shoot you down.”

The manner of the speech–the fierce intensity of it–impressed the wreckers. They perceived that the boy’s face had turned pale, that his eyes were flashing strangely. They were unused to such a depth of passion. It may be that they were reminded of a bear at bay.

“I believe he’d do it,” said one.

An uneasy quiet followed; and in that silence Billy heard the prow of another punt strike the ship. More footfalls came shuffling aft–other faces peered down the companionway. One man pushed his way through the group and made as if to come down the ladder.

“Stand back!” Billy cried.

The threat in that shrill cry brought the man to a stop. He turned; and that which he saw caused him to fall back upon his fellows. There was an outcry and a general falling away from the cabin door. Some men ran forward to the punts.

“The lad’s gone mad!” said one. “Leave us get ashore!”

Billy had whipped the stopper out of the hole in the head of the powder keg, had snatched the candle from the socket, carefully guarding its flame, and now sat, triumphantly gazing up, with the butt of the candle through the hole in the keg and the flame flickering above its depths.

“Men,” said he, when they had gathered again at the door, “if I let that candle slip through my fingers, you know what’ll happen.” He paused; then he went on, speaking in a quivering voice: “My friends left me in charge o’ this here schooner, and I’ve been caught nappin’. If I’d been on deck, you wouldn’t have got aboard. But now you are aboard, and ’tis all because I didn’t do my duty. Do you think I care what becomes o’ me now? Do you think I don’t care whether I do my duty or not? I tell you fair that if you don’t go ashore I’ll drop the candle in the keg. If one o’ you dares come down that ladder, I’ll drop it. If I hear you lift the hatches off the hold, I’ll drop it. If I hear you strike a blow at the ship, I’ll drop it. Hear me?” he cried. “If you don’t go, I’ll drop it!”

The candle trembled between Billy’s fingers. It slipped, fell an inch or more, but his fingers gripped it again before he lost it. The wreckers recoiled, now convinced that the lad meant no less than he said.

“I guess you’d do it, b’y,” said the man who had attempted to descend. “Sure,” he repeated, with a glance of admiration for the boy’s pluck, “I guess you would.”

“’Tis not comfortable here,” said another. “Sure, he might drop it by accident. Make haste, b’ys! Let’s get ashore.”

“Good-night, skipper, sir!” said the first.

“Good-night, sir!” said Billy, grimly.

With that they went over the side. Billy heard them leap into the punts, push off, and row away. Then silence fell–broken only by the ripple of the water, the noise of the wind in the rigging, the swish of breakers drifting in. The boy waited a long time, not daring to venture on deck, lest they should be lying in wait for him at the head of the ladder. He listened for a footfall, a noise in the hold, the shifting of the deck cargo; but he heard nothing.